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Monday, 26 November 2012

According
to the Oxford Dictionary a sightline (or sight-line, or even sight
line) is a 'straight line extending from the eye of a spectator to an
object or area being watched ', but in Sightlines, Scottish
poet Kathleen Jamie takes a look at landscapes many of us
would not normally see. This isn't a book, of poetry, but but her
language and thoughts are those of a poet, and her vision remains
clear as she looks at hidden places, exploring nature, and man's
place within it, reflecting and connecting on what she finds,

Her
journey takes her to the strangely beautiful world inside the human
body, viewed through a pathologist's microscope; bird communities on
isolated Scottish islands, and a ruined chapel on an island named for
a saint who lived so long ago that only his name and the stones
remain. She visits the site of a vanished Neolithic henge, has an
encounter with icebergs, and gets to stay on St Kilda, where life was
so harsh people finally abandoned it. She makes her way deep into a
Spanish cave system to view prehistoric wall paintings, sees the
mysterious Northern Lights and watches the moon turn to a dusky red
globe hanging in the sky during an eclipse,

And
then there are the whales. It's the whales that dominate, alive and
dead, and her her words do more to drive home the terrible fate of
these creatures at the hands of mankind then any new programme or
learned paper from campaigners could ever do.

St Brendan and his monks moored at an island,
lit a fire - and the island (which was really a
whale) sank! I'm not sure who would have
been more shocked, the monks or the whale.

Whales
have always fascinated me. As a child my imagination was captured by
exotic tales of Sinbad and St Brendan, who both set up camp on
islands that turned out to be whales – imagine the shock of waking
up one morning to find the 'land' is moving! And then there was
Kipling's 'How the Whale Got His Throat' in which, O Best Beloved, a
Mariner of infinite-resource-and-sagacity is eaten by a whale and
dances hornpipes where he shouldn't, so the whale lets him go, but
not before he turns his raft and suspenders into a grating in the
whale's throat, to prevent men and large fish being swallowed. Over
the years since then I've come across a host of other stories and
poems about whales (Ted Hughes' 'How the Whale Became' is brilliant). I've watched them in various David Attenborough programmes, and worried about their dwindling numbers. And, of course, I've listened to the wonderful Judy
Collins singing 'Farewell to Tarwathie', a traditional whaling folk song, accompanied by the sounds of spine-tingling whale-song.

Jamie's
description of the whale skeletons on display in Bergen's Natural
History Museum is hauntingly beautiful.

The
Hvalsalen. Whale Hall. What else could it be called? They were all
there, such a roster of whales – the baleen whales, sei and
humpback, right, fin and minke whales – even the blue whale, and
the toothed whales, too, sperm and bottlenose, narwhal and beluga,
and the Sowerby's beaked whale, and, affixed to the walls, dolphins,
almost dainty in comparison; the killer whale and the bottlenose.

Such
bones as I never saw, hanging above my head.

There
are twenty-four of them packed together (like blackbirds in a pie, I
thought as I read), held together with metal, suspended from the ceiling on
iron chains. Dusty, dirty, brown with age, they seem to have a life
of their own, and oil still seeps from the bones more than a century
after they were slaughtered and stripped of fat and flesh. To start
with Jamie is mystified by the distinctive smell, but eventually
identifies it as that of her childhood wax crayons which, it
transpires, were probably made of whale oil.

A whale skeleton at the Hvalsalen. The website is at
http://www.uib.no/universitynuseum/what-s-on/
exhibitions/exhibitions-on-the-web/the-whale-hall

On
a central pillar, neatly painted in Norwegian and English, were the
words “Do not touch the animals", but it was a bit late for
that. The whalers' harpoons had got them; the flensing iron.

But
despite the weight of bones, the effect of the Hvalsalen was
dreamlike. The vast structures didn't seem to offer any reproach.
Rather, they drew you in. Undisturbed for a century, they had
colluded to create a place of silence and memory. A vast statement of
fact: "Whales is what we were. This is what we are. Spend a
little time here and you too feel how it is to be a huge mammal of
the seas, to require the sea to hold you, to grow so big at the
ocean's hospitality."

When
she returns and helps a specialist conservation team clean the
skeletons, she is amazed at the transformation. Handling the bones of
a right whale (so called because it was the right whale to kill), she
muses:

It
was astonishingly light – it seemed to radiate such a thick yellow
light. The word that came to mind was 'buttery'. The bones, I mean.

The
presence of all those whale bones gets under her skin, and I
understand why. The conservators have never seen live whales, but
Jamie has, and the magic of these giant marine mammals shines
through her writing.

She
describes a sighting of five killer whales viewed from the rocky
cliffs of an islet where she is studying a gannetry. The whales appear
as a dark pencil line on the horizon, but at closer quarters they are
immeasurably huge. They blow, and roll, and disappear, and rise
again, water spilling off the side of their broad backs. Like
inanimate icebergs, the living whales 'revealed only as much of
themselves as was necessary; much more of their bodies remained
concealed from his under the sea's surface, even when they blew'.

Photo of killer whales courtesy of Robert Pittman at

Wikimedia Commons.

Months
later on the remote, uninhabited isle of Rona, she sees the same
group and watches the reactions of birds and seals under threat. But
although the five whales watch, and circle the area, they swim off
and the seals are left alive and unharmed.

As
I read I thought about my Norwegian grandmother, born in 1888 in Kragero, a
small town on the edge of a fjord. There was a brother who was lost
at sea, and her father owned a fishing fleet, and I believe his father
was also a fisherman, so I found myself wondering if they, or any of
their family and friends were involved in the whaling industry. I would
so love to see whales but, sadly, I am a disgrace to my sea-faring
ancestors, for although I love to be beside water, I am always exceedingly ill on boats, even with the aid
of prescription travel tablets, wristbands, and a 24-hour fast prior
to sailing, so I guess whale watching is not a sensible option. Instead I
will content myself with reading about them and looking at their
bones.

Jamie
is intrigued by the bones. She found her own whale vertebra on the
turf of a Hebridean island, just up from the shore, and visited
museums as well as towns with whalebone arches, including Whitby. The
jawbone arch she looked at there is a recent installation, donated by
Alaska in 2003, and it's the previous one I remember, it's surface
crumbling and pitted with age. She also called into the
museum run by the Literary and Philosophical Society, which still has
exhibits housed in old wood and glass cabinets, and is one of the
best museums I've ever been to, with a mesmerising collection of memorabilia from the old whaling captains and their crewmen.

William Scoresby Jnr.

There
Jamie looked the life of Whitby's best-known whaler, William Scoresby
Jnr, who studied snowflakes in the Arctic, conducted magnetic
experiments to improve the compass, and surveyed the coast of
Greenland, naming the inlets and headlands after his friends and
family. In the museum you can see his delicate sketches and water
colours of the places he called at, and the plants and wildlife he
saw – but he also returned home with barrels full of bone and
blubber. He was obviously cultured and clever, yet he made his living by slaughtering whales in the most brutal fashion imaginable (there's a graphic description of the killing and processing of a whale in Carol Birch's 'Jamrach's Menagerie') Until Jamie reminded me I had forgotten that Scoresby
eventually left the sea to become a clergyman, but somehow I doubt he
concerned himself with the fate of the whales.

By
the way, his father William Scoresby Snr, whom Jamie doesn't mention,
invented the crow's nest, which gave sailors a clear sightline from
sea to land (when there was any to see), which takes me back to the
title, and set me thinking about the word sight, which can be used
for the action of looking at something, and for the thing being
looked at. I know the grammar is a bit wonky there, but what I am
trying to say is that there is a strange kind of duality there, and
there are sights for us to see in unlikely places, if we only know
where to look, and Jamie does her best to make us see them.

Overall,
the image I was left with was her thoughts on the Aurora
Borealis.

Once
upon a time whaling ships had come to these latitudes, with orders to
return heavy with oil and baleen. Now the aurora alters into long
trailing verticals, and it makes me think of baleen. Sifting, Sifting
what? Stars, souls, particles.You could fancy the northern lights
were a great whale whose jaws our ship were entering.

The
book held me spellbound, and I ended up by checking out the Bergen
museum, and finding more information about whales and whalers, and writing much more about them I intended. I think I got slightly obsessed by the subject, but there is a lot more to book than that.

This is Kipling's own illustration for 'How the Whale got his Throat',which I include because it was one of my first introductions to whales, and everyone should read 'The Just So Stories'. Kipling's caption says: "This is the picture of the Whale swallowing the Mariner with hisinfinite-resource-and-sagacity, and the raft and the jack-knifeand his suspenders, which you must not forget."

I have to say a big thank you to Lynne at
dovegreyreader, who wrote a wonderful review of this book, which is
much more sensible than mine (you'll find it here ) which I remembered when I saw the Kindle version of the book on offer at a bargain price, so I bought it. Now I can look forward to reading 'Findings' and I need to get a book of Jamie's poetry!

Saturday, 24 November 2012

I seem to have had one of those weeks where I haven't really felt like doing much, and curling up with a book seemed much the best option to pass the time, so I haven't got round to writing anything for several days. But I stirred myself into activity this morning, wrapped up warmly in my new winter coat (an early Christmas pressie from my wonderful daughters) and was out bright and early - by which I mean I was bright, but the weather wasn't. It wasn't raining, but it was very dull and foggy, although it cleared by the time I walked down to the Castle Grounds to look at the floods. The light wasn't good, but I've taken some pictures for this week's Saturday Snapshot to give you an idea what it looked like.

This shot, taken from a bridge, gives some idea of the extentof the flooding.

The Anker had burst its banks, and there was no way I could walk alongside the river, like I do normally, but I went as far as I could, and gazed at the transformed landscape. Really the river isn't all that wide, but the land on either side is very flat, and very low lying, so there are always floods when the weather is bad - and today was as bad as I've ever seen it. Grassland looked like a marsh, while trees were growing out of the water, and the the benches along the bank had almost disappeared.

This beautiful flowers were growing on the unsubmerged part of the bank, and brought a welcome touch of colour to a bleak day.

It looked spectacular, and the force of the water swirling and rushing along in the main course of the river was frightening. The water was a kind of chocolate brown, with trails of creamy coloured, frothy bubbles on the top, and I could hear it burbling and gurgling.

This may look like a river, or pool...

Normally there are dozens of ducks, geese and swans there, as well as coots and moorhens, but today most of them had vanished. There were a pair of swans swimming in the calmer water, above a footpath, and a few mallards and moorhens a bit further off - too far away to get a clear picture, and I certainly wasn't going to risk splashing through the flood water, although it didn't look very deep at that point. And six geese (just like in the song, but they were not a-laying) stood on a patch of bank that was still above water, peering at the torrent in a rather bewildered fashion, as if they were wondering what happened to their normal environment.

....but it's really a footpath!

The town centre is slightly higher, and doesn't flood. I had a good browse and, still on a watery theme, found two beautiful shells in a charity shop, and snaffled them up so I can hold them against my ear and listen to the sea.

Trees growing in the water!

I got back home just before the rain set in, and have been sitting reading Alice Oswald's 'Dart', because I love her work, and this poem about the River Dart, in Devon, may be about a different river, but somehow it seemed to suit the occasion.

This is grassland - honestly - and normally you can walkacross it without wearing wellies!

For more Saturday Snapshots see Alice's blog at For more Saturday Snapshots see Alice's blog at

Tuesday, 20 November 2012

Lolly
Willowes, Sylvia Townsend Warner's first novel, is a quite
extraordinary story of a woman who sells her soul to the Devil and
finds her true self by becoming a witch. Let me start by saying that
Laura Willowes – the Lolly of the
title – may confound your expectations of witchery. She wouldn't
dream of riding a broomstick, and she has no intention of casting
spells, for good or for bad. Laura doesn't want to help, or to be
helped. She just wants to be herself, to think her own thoughts, make her own decisions, and live her own life.

When
her father dies Laura moves in with passionless, duty-bound Henry (the younger of her two brothers), his wife Caroline and their two
daughters. Laura has some reservations about her future: “But
in London there would be no greenhouse with a glossy tank, and no
apple room, and no potting-shed, earthy and warm, with bunches of
poppy heads hanging from the ceiling, and sunflower seeds in a wooden
box, and bulbs in their paper bags, and hanks of tarred string, and
lavender drying on a tea-tray.”

However,
she remains passive about the move,
with no will of her own. “And Laura, feeling rather as if
she were a piece of family property forgotten in the will, was ready
to be disposed of as they should think best,” Townsend
Warner tells us. Over
the next 20 years Laura loses her name and her identity. She becomes
Aunt Lolly, a dull, sensible,
conventional woman, always ready to help when needed. But there are
inklings that all is not quite as it seems, for each autumn she feels
oddly uneasy and sometimes, while visiting old, forgotten corners of
London she feels she is missing something important, and a secret is
about to be revealed.

Then
she walks into a small greengrocery shop and everything changes. “As
Laura stood waiting she felt a great longing. It weighed upon her
like a load of ripened fruit upon a tree. She forgot the shop, the
other customers, her own errand. She forgot the winter air outside,
the people going by on the wet pavements. She forgot that she was in
London, she forgot the whole of her London life. She seemed to be
standing alone in a darkening orchard, her feet in the grass, her
arms stretched up to the pattern of leaves and fruit, her gingers
seeking the rounded ovals of fruit among the rounded ovals of
leaves.”

The
chrysanthemums she buys smell of the dark, rustling woods, like the
wood which haunts her imagination each autumn, and on discovering
they come from the Chilterns she buys a map and guide book and
informs her horrified family that she is moving to the village of
Great Mop.

Once
there she feels at one with the landscape, with nature and the
passing seasons. But she senses a hidden secret just beyond her
grasp. However, her new-found freedom and her joy in life are
threatened by the arrival of Titus (the son of her other brother).
She wants rid of him at any cost, and her anguished plea for help is
answered – by Satan.

The
novel starts as something of a social satire, a comedy of manners.
“The Willoweses were a
conservative family and kept to old-fashioned ways,” writes
Townsend Warner, adding: “Finding that well-chosen wood and
well-chosen wine improved with keeping, they believed the same law
applied to well-chosen ways.”

But
beneath that humorous veneer lies something much sharper and darker. I found it utterly un-put-downable, but I wouldn't describe it as charming, delightful, or whimsical. There's a kind
of wildness here, something untamed and uncontrollable, and it must
have seemed very subversive when it was published in 1926, demanding
a life of their own for women, and portraying the Devil almost as a
force for good.

When
he appears, Townsend Warner's Satan may look like a dishevelled
gamekeeper, but he seems to have more in common with ancient pagan
gods than he does with the conventional Christian view of the Devil.
He is a hunter who collects souls not because he's evil, malicious,
or even mischievous, , but because he can. He doesn't want to control
people, or lead them into bad ways. Once he knows he has their soul
he is happy to leave them alone, to let them do, say and think what
they want. He confers a glorious kind of freedom on people, which
enables Laura to finally be completely true to herself, and do
exactly as she pleases.

Sylvia Townsend Warner

And
when she meets Satan she is confident enough to launch into the most
amazing, impassioned speech, in which she rails against the way women
are treated. There is nothing for women, she says, except
'subjugation and plaiting their hair'. Men talk, while women listen
and become dull. Women do. “If they could be passive and
unnoticed it wouldn't matter. But they must be active, and still not
noticed,” she explains. “And think, Satan, what a
compliment you pay her, pursuing her soul, lying in wait for it,
following it through all its windings, crafty and patient and secret
like a gentleman out killing tigers. Her soul – when no one else
would give a look at her body even.”

And,
she says, a woman will take that chance to stretch her wings and be
herself in a dangerous black night because 'it's to have a life of
one's own, not an existence doled out to you by others'. There
are no theological arguments here, no thoughts about the nature of
good and evil, or life and death, or considerations about the future.
What matters is the here and now, and a woman's right to be
independent.

Saturday, 17 November 2012

This week's Saturday Snapshot is a kind of follow-up on Alyce's photos of peacocks last week, because they reminded me that I once did a little peacock embroidery, using blue and green shiny threads, and beads, and a variety of stitches, including eyelet stitch, straight stitch, Rhodes stitch and herringbone. I bought the design and instructions at an embroidery exhibition some years back, and it sat around for a while until I got round to doing it, and it's not all that big - about five inches across. It may not be as spectacular as the real bird, but I had great fun creating my little peacock, because I love messing around with different stitches and threads. Anyway, I hunted it out and took a picture.

And, since Christmas is on the way, I also took photos of some of the seasonal embroideries I have stitched over the years. I never seem to have enough money to have my work framed, so I have dozens of embroideries stashed away in a big plastic box, which is not really the best way to store them, because they get horribly creased, and it seems such a shame not to have them on display. Perhaps I could have a go at framing them myself, but I've always been worried about wrecking them.The photographs haven't really come out all that well. I think a different camera setting may have helped, or scanning might have produced better results.

As you can see, I enjoy stitching samplers - I've completed several for other seasons of the year, and a few traditional 'house' designs, and a lot of Noah's Arks (I like Noah, although it's Mrs Noah I always feel sorry for when I think of all the feeding she must have done, and the cleaning and grooming, and mucking out, and trying to keep the peace between all those creatures).

This Christmas Angel is not my usual style at all. I saw it in a magazine, and it looked so pretty I thought I would have a go, but it drove me demented working on it, and I'm still not happy with it, and I really can't work out why. It's like a book that you don't like, but you can't pinpoint why you don't like it.

For more Saturday Snapshots see Alice's blog at For more Saturday Snapshots see Alice's blog at

Tuesday, 13 November 2012

Sometimes,
when you love a book, it is quite difficult to write about it,
especially when lots of other people have already said lots of
terribly clever and erudite things – and Miss Pettigrew Livesfor a Day is just such novel. Written by Winifred Watson,
it's a charming fairy tale, funny and light-hearted, with a lovely,
happy ending that is perfect for this particular tale.

Miss
Pettigrew is a dowdy, impoverished, middle-aged spinster, who earns a
meagre pittance by working as governess, a job she loathes and is not
very good at. But one day the agency muddles two clients, and she
finds herself at the luxurious (though ostentatious) flat of Delysia
LaFosse, a beautiful, golden-haired actress and nightclub singer who
is seeking a maid, and her life is changed for ever.

Down
on her luck, and at the end of her tether, Miss Pettigrew has little
chance – and little inclination - to explain who she really is. To
her surprise, she finds herself called upon to persuade one young man
to leave, and to erase all signs that could betray his presence to
another young man who is due to arrive. And it turns out that there
is yet another young man in Miss LaFosse's colourful life, who is
desperately in love with her and would make the perfect husband...

It's
all very different to the strait-laced, dull, drab life Miss
Pettigrew has known up until now, and she ought to be horrified.

Miss
Pettigrew cast a sternly disapproving eye about her, but behind her
disapproval stirred a strange sensation of excitement. This was the
kind of room in which one did things and strange events occurred and
amazing creatures, like her momentary inquisitor, lived vivid,
exciting and hazardous lives.

As
Miss Pettigrew herself says, this is a place where things happen –
and, to her great enjoyment, they happen at a fast and furious pace.
Unloved, friendless and lonely, her knowledge of life comes from years
watching her employers, and days off watching American movies, but
fear and desperation about a bleak future lend her a courage she
doesn't normally possess, and she finds herself doing and saying
things she would not have dreamed of a few hours earlier.

One of the illustrations by Mary
Thompson, showing Miss Pettigrew
and Delysia LaFosse. I'm sure you
can guess who is who!

In
the process she discovers the joys of alcohol, attends a nightclub in
borrowed finery, resolves Miss Lafosse's complicated love life, and
even acquires a beau of her own. More importantly, in less than 24
hours she learns how to enjoy herself, makes new friends, and gains
confidence in her looks and abilities. The world she discovers may be
superficial, but it's fun and comfortable, filled with colour and
beauty, packed with emotions and sensory experiences.

Miss
LaFosse and her Bohemian friends may not be entirely respectable, but
they recognise Miss Pettigrew's worth, and accept her for what she is,
although they themselves may not be quite what they seem. Miss
LaFosse keeps her origins a close-guarded secret; her followers are
self-made men, and her friend Edythe Dubarry, owns the best beauty
parlour in London and owes her looks partly to her own skill, and
partly to the surgeon's art.

The
men are handsome, the women are beautiful, and they all dress in the
latest, most expensive attire as they move through a glittering world
of parties and nightclubs, sipping cocktails, laughing and joking.
For Miss Pettigrew, starved of love, affection, beauty and joy, it's
like a dream come true, and she cannot believe her luck as she seizes this
new life with both hands.

I loved this, and Miss Pettigrew's new-found joy in life was so endearing - it's a nice feel-good novel, with some sparkling dialogue, and some astute comments on human nature and society.

Saturday, 10 November 2012

Question:
How do you boost your town's wealth and trade when there's no decent
road network linking you to the rest of Britain, but you're only a
mile and a half from the sea? Answer: You build a canal... And
that's just what the good citizens of Ulverston did at the end of the
18th century.

As
you can see, for this week's Saturday Snapshot, I've been
trawling through the photos from our visit to Cumbria this summer. In all the years we've holidayed up there we've never,
ever explored the canal, which is still full of water, although it's no
longer navigable. The Man of the House, born and bred in the area,
had never seen it and knew nothing of its history, so it was something
of adventure.

Sea-side: This was the entrance to the canal but, as you can see
from the grass, the sea no longer reaches the gates.

We
left the campervan behind, and walked along hedge-lined lanes and narrow roads down to Canal Foot at Hammerside, where the canal meets the sea (the town end is
known as Canal Head). It seemed quite a trek - as I've said before,
we're not really used to walking - so we were glad to stop and
enjoy a reviving pot of tea whilst sitting in a pub garden admiring the spectacular views of Morecambe Bay, the Cumbrian Hills,
and the canal itself.

The
entrance to the bay, where the great ships once sailed in and out, is now
plugged with concrete, and the swingbridge that spanned the canal is
long gone, but there's a modern footbridge leading to the towpath which runs on one side. The ruined gates to the sea lock are reflected in the water, a
strange, ghostly reminder of the time when this was part of a thriving
port.

Land-side: The lock at the end of the canal. Once the level of
the water had been adjusted, huge gates would have
opened to let ships in or out.

In
the 18th century Ulverston, like most of the Furness Peninsula, was cut off on the landward side by the hills and
mountains of the Lake District, and on the seaward side by the
treacherous, shifting sands of Morecambe Bay. In those days Cumbria hadn't been created (the county is a modern invention, as the Man of the House is fond of reminding me), and the area, remote and isolated, was known as known as Lancashire-over-the-Sands, which I think sounds much nicer. Romantic, don't you agree? Anyway, horse-drawn wagons
took local iron and slate to coastal towns to be
shipped elsewhere, but loading
and unloading was difficult, because the bay is tidal, and the water goes
out for miles.

Canals were the favoured haulage routes of the day - quick (!), efficient and direct. So there was huge support when solicitor William Burnthwaite came up with the idea of a waterway linking Ulverston with the sea at the Leven estuary, to provide ocean-going ships with a safe
berth in the basin at the town end while cargoes were packed and
unpacked. When it opened in October
1796, the Ulverston Canal was the country's shortest, deepest, widest and straightest
waterway and, unusually, was all one one level, with only one lock. It was an engineering masterpiece.

I like this view of industrial chimneys reflected in the water,
and the juxtaposition of nature and industry existing side by side.

A host of industries grew up around it.
There were warehouses, foundries, mills, timber merchants, rope
making, and ships' supplies, as well as charcoal burning and
hoop-making for barrels. Hemp was grown in local fields, and
twisted into rope for ships on 'rope walks'. Ship building and
repairs flourished - vessels from Ulverston travelled the world when
nearby Barrow, now much better known, was still a hamlet. And, of
course, there were offices for port and customs officials.

Merchants and ship owners became extremely wealthy - but many a fortune was based on the iniquitous 'three-way trade', where goods were traded for African slaves, who were sold in America and the Caribbean, and ships returned to England with their holds full of goods unavailable in their native land. In Ulverston riches were often founded on locally produced gunpowder, which was traded for slaves in Africa.

This strange structure is part of a rare sliding railway bridge,
which originally opened up to let ships through (unlike the
brick built viaduct arches further up the canal). There are
bits of it below the water on both sides of the bridge.

But the glory years didn't last long: from the outset there were problems keeping the constantly moving deep water channel free from silt and in the right position. Barrow proved to be a far better deep water port, growing in importance as Ulverston declined. And the railway had a terrible effect. In the mid-1840s viaduct arches built across the canal near its head prevented bigger ships from reaching the 'pool'. Although a new basin was dug out on the other side of the bridge for new wharves, things never picked up.

Another viaduct built by the Furness Railway
Company in 1857 provided quick, easy transport across the estuary, and some businessmen believed it was the cause of the channel silting up. The railway company bought the canal in 1862 (which sounds like a conflict of interests to me) and shipbuilding gradually came to an end. However, the canal was still used commercially until the First World War, and remained open until just after the Second World War, when the sea entrance was dammed - and very odd it looks, with water on one side, and sand on the other.

This was the unspoiled landscape next to the towpath.

A large chunk of land on one bank is taken up by pharmaceutical giant Glaxo Smith Kline, who owned the canal at one point, but it now belongs to the Ulverston Canal Company, and a trust has been established to provide cash for management, maintenance and
preservation. In addition, I gather South Lakeland District Council, Ulverston Town Council and other interested bodies are working with UCC to develop derelict industrial areas on that side of the canal, to preserve wildlife, and promote leisure activities.

The towpath runs along the opposite bank, and is absolutely glorious, with open fields and views of the
hills on one side, and the canal on the other. It's a haven for wildlife. We saw waterlilies on the canal, and stood on the edge watching fish, dragonflies, coot, mallards, moorhens, swans and geese. Sometimes, apparently, you can see cormorants, herons and grebe, but there were none around on our day out. However, there were masses of birds and insects (most of which we were unable to identify) in the hedges, trees and fields.

Don't you think this looks beautiful? The buildings in the
background are at Canal Head, where the canal ends - it looks
almost like the edge of pond, which wasn't what I was expecting.
I imagine it would look more like a dock.

I spotted rowan trees, and brambles, meadowsweet with its beautiful creamy white flowers, rose bay willowherb, a plant I think was kind of balsam, and a profusion of other flowers and grasses. The canal was much, much bigger than the canals in and round Tamworth, and looked much cleaner as it shone and sparkled in the sunlight.It was the most beautiful, peaceful walk, and was obviously well used by fisherman,
walkers, cyclists, dog owners, children, tourists and local residents, which was good to see. We were also impressed that people seem to respect the area - there was no dog mess or litter, no-one was playing loud music, and the children and young people we met were all really well behaved. I should add here that the water and banks of the canals where we live often leave a lot to be desired.

The canal basin.

At the end of our canalside stroll we made our way into the town centre, where we had another reviving cup of tea and treated ourselves to a late lunch of home-made soup and a sandwich (the bread was was homemade as well). Deciding we'd done enough walking for one day, we headed for the bus stop, and stopped to ask directions from a lovely lady who started chatting, said she was going our way, and insisted on giving us a lift! That's another thing that doesn't happen at home! It made the perfect end to a perfect day, leaving us with some really happy memories.

For
more Saturday Snapshots see Alice's blog
at For more Saturday Snapshots see Alice's blog at

*Information in this post was taken from the booklet 'Discovering Ulverston & Surroundings' by Jeff Chambers, from leaflets issued by the town council, and from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulverston_Canal

Friday, 9 November 2012

I'd
never heard of Angela Thirkell until I read a post by Claire
at The Captive
Reader, who is a great enthusiast and has written about her on
several occasions. Since Claire seems to enjoy many of my own
favourite novels, I find I usually like her recommendations. So when
I spotted a vintage Penguin edition of High Rising (number
339) at the top of a sack full of books destined for recycling, I
just had to rescue it – but I would have to say I have never, ever
read a book in such poor condition. Few of the pages were still
attached to the spine, but I carefully gathered up the loose leaves
and counted them to check they were all present. They were, but the
book is way beyond the stage where glue and Sellotape might effect
some kind of repair. Sadly, I fear, honorable burial (or, in this
case recycling) really is the only option.

Now
charity and second-hand sellers often speak about 'pre-loved' goods,
and when I see a book in pristine condition I always doubt it's been
read, let alone loved – but this book has obviously been read, and
read, and read. It's so well thumbed, worn, and brown with age that
it's barely a book any longer, but you can tell it's been much loved,
and I'm proud to be its last reader. The downside to all this is that
I loved 'High Rising' so much I will have to buy another copy which
isn't falling to pieces.

It's
set in the imaginary county of Barsetshire (as created by Anthony
Trollope), and the main protagonist is widowed Laura Morland,
popular author of what she describes as 'good bad books'. Left in
dire financial straits when her husband dies, she makes a living the
only way she knows – by writing. Her mysteries all take place the
wholesale and retail dress business, although her own sense of
fashion is less than perfect, revolving as it does around 'hurried
bargains in the sales', and her hastily pinned-up hair is always
falling down.

Her
success gives her financial security and she can afford 'a small flat
in London, and a reasonable little house in the country, and a
middle-class car'. The only thing that makes Laura occasionally
admire herself a little is that she has a secretary, a part-time
secretary, but a secretary nevertheless. Success as a writer also
gives her independence, and she has no intention of becoming
romantically involved with anyone. She enjoys her lifestyle, and
appreciates her good fortune. “She was quite contented, and never
took herself seriously, though she took a lot of trouble over her
books,” writes Thirkell.

Much
of the humour in the book comes from her relationship with Tony, the
youngest of her four sons, and the only one who is still at school
(the others have left home). She loves him dearly, but at the same
time is irritated by his exuberance, his constant chatter, his
untidiness, his inability to stay clean and tidy – and his obsession
with trains!

Laura's
circle of friends includes her secretary Anne Todd, who has spent
years caring for her difficult mother who suffers from a heart
condition and what is probably dementia. Then there is Dr Ford, whose admiration for Anne knows no
bounds. But Anne harbours a secret passion for George Knox, who
writes serious historical books and is being kept away from his
friends by his ultra-efficient new secretary, mad Miss Grey, aka the
Incubus, who has set her sights on marrying the boss...

Meanwhile
Laura is convinced that her publisher Adrian and George's shy
daughter Sibyl are made for each other, but by bringing them together
she paves the way for scary Miss Grey to move in on George. Finally,
it's left to Anne to dream up a scheme to repel the invader, with
help from Laura's friend Amy who, as the wife of Tony's headmaster,
has had experience of dealing with a mad secretary.

The
novel was published in 1933, and Thirkell's portrayal of village
life, with its minute social distinctions, is very funny and
beautifully nuanced, and I love her writing, and the literary
allusions. But it's the characters who stay in your mind, because
they are so keenly observed. It's a light-hearted, beautifully
written thoroughly enjoyable read, and I heaved a sigh of
satisfaction when I finished, and started trawling the net looking
for more of her work.

Wednesday, 7 November 2012

I
stayed there, staring at myself in the glass. What do I want to cry
about? … On the contrary, it's when I am quite sane this like this,
when I have had a couple of extra drinks and am quite sane, that I
realise how lucky I am. Saved, rescued, fished-up, half-drowned, out
of the deep, dark river, dry clothes, hair shampooed and set. Nobody
would know I had ever been in it. Except, of course, that there
always remains something. Yes, there always remains something. …
Never mind, here I am, sane and dry, with my place to hide in. What
more do I want? … I'm a bit of an automaton, but sane, surely –
dry, cold and sane. Now I have forgotten about dark streets, dark
rivers, the pain, the struggle, the drowning … Mind you, I'm not
talking about the struggle when you are strong and a good swimmer and
there are willing and eager friends on the bank waiting to pull you
out at the first sign of distress. I mean the real thing. You jump in
with no willing and eager friends around, and when you sink you sink
to the accompaniment of loud laughter.

The cover of my Penguin edition shows
a detail from The Girl with a Tattered Glove
by William Nicholson, which has just
the right note of sadness.

Well, today I'm still in Paris, but I've abandoned the wealthy, sparkling world of Nancy Mitford for the dark, shabby streets of Jean Rhys. The world she describes in Good Morning, Midnight, couldn't be more different, and her characters scratch a living as best they can. Sasha is as much seduced by the city as Grace, but any dreams of love she ever had have long since been smashed. There's a rawness and intensity here that is lacking in 'The Blessing', and somehow, despite everything that happens to her, Sasha is honest in way that Grace isn't. And the way the novels are written is very different as well.

I can still remember how knocked out I was when I first read 'Wide Sargasso Sea' - it was a whole new way of looking at a novel, and rethinking the way I saw heroes and villains. And I was just as knocked out by 'Good Morning, Midnight'.

It's 1936 and Sasha, as she calls herself, has returned to Paris where
she lived for many years. As she wanders the city fragments of her
past come to light: her child, a white, silent baby boy, lying dead
in the hospital with a ticket tied round his wrist before ever she
leaves the nursing home; her husband moving out of her life on a
train; the jobs which didn't work out and the men who abandoned her.

Then
there are the rooms where she has lived, in Holland, Brussels, Paris
and London. The locations may change, but the rooms are always the
same: small, riddled with bugs, in cheap buildings, in poor streets.
She dreams of a room, a nice room, a nice light room, a beautiful
room, a beautiful room with a bath, but it never happens. Lonely and
desolate, she is unable to cope with the practicalities of everyday
life, and gets by with the aid of drink and sleeping pills. And, like
a child avoiding the cracks in the pavement she has an armoury of
charms and rituals to protect her from the world – all will be well
if she can only avoid certain streets, certain cafes, certain bars.

The Medici Fountain in the Jardin du Luxembourg, where Sasha stands andwatches the fish.

There
are times when a certain jaunty optimism surfaces. She will drink to
a Miracle, she will have a new hair-do, buy a new hat, and tomorrow
she will be pretty and happy again and everything will be all right,
but you know there can be no happy ending here. Sasha appears
vulnerable, a perpetual victim, easy prey for the young gigolo, or
the young Russian and his painter friend.

However,
she has tremendous self-knowledge. She knows exactly who and what she
is, and she is a surprisingly good judge of character. Cynical and
disillusioned, she can spot a crook or a conman a mile off, but is
prepared to let herself be taken in – I think she craves some kind
of human contact, however bad the experience and its consequences may
be.

From
the moment she attaches herself to Enno (who marries and leaves her)
because she wants to escape her life in London, she seems to make her
own decisions. Circumstances may be against her, and her choices may
be limited, but nobody forces her, and she puts herself in situations
where the outcome is inevitable. Knowing she cannot change the past,
she has an almost fatalistic acceptance of the present. This happened
and that happened, she says. And it's a refrain that sounds throughout
the novel, with slight variations along the way. Here this happened,
here that happened, she tells us, remembering this, remembering that.
Above all Sasha, who was once Sophie, who was once Sophia, realises
the absurdity of human life, and how droll it can be.

Good
Morning, Midnight (the title comes from an Emily Dickinson poem) ends
on a slightly sinister, but is not as depressing or bleak as it
sounds. There are moments of joy (though not many admittedly) and
touches of humour that can see, almost macabre. And whatever course
Sasha's life has taken, she has lived it to the full, unlike her
unknown family who follow a clichéd existence back in England.

The
novel is beautifully written, in a kind of stream of consciousness
first tense, where past and present merge and nothing is clear cut. I suspect that when it was first published in 1939 many people must have found it shocking in form and content. Never an easy read, nevertheless, it's livelier and more personal than Viginia
Woolf, and it's tempting to see Sasha as a version of Rhys herself
for here, as in so much of her work, her own turbulent life and
feelings of alienation seem to be reflected. At any rate, in Sasha
she has created a flawed woman who is set on a crash course to
disaster, while we stand helplessly by and watch.

Monday, 5 November 2012

Penguin number 1211, published in
in 1957 - don't you wish paperbacks
were still two shillings and sixpence?

It's wartime London (Second World War
that is) and Grace, who who is engaged to Hughie, falls in love with
a charming Frenchman. A month later they are married and after a
two-week honeymoon he returns to his unit. Their son is seven when
Charles-Edouard de Valhubert reappears and whisks her off to France,
where he has a country estate in Provence and a luxurious home in
Paris, both packed with assorted relatives, antiques and paintings.

Initially all seems well as Grace, who
is beautiful but dim, slowly becomes accustomed to marriage and
French life. However Charles-Edouard is not so enthusiastic about
being tied down, and continues his liaisons with at least two other
women. When he is eventually discovered 'in flagrante' Grace returns
to England, and the couple's young son realises he can manipulate the
situation to his own advantage – but only if he keeps his parents
apart...

Now this may regarded as sacrilege by her many fans, but personally I think The Blessing, by Nancy
Mitford, is the
chick-lit of its day. Set in the aristocratic world she knew so well, it's written in sparkling, witty prose, and is very
light-hearted, very frothy, and rather stylised - for some strange reason I kept viewing it as a stage comedy with a few near-farcical moments. However, the story is slight, there are no
great insights into the human condition (not that this is a
requirement for novels), and the characters have no depth – they
are stereotypical portraits rather than fully rounded characters, and
I wonder how credible they would have seemed when the novel was
published in 1951.

Charles-Edouard never really comes to
life – he's a wealthy, aristocratic Frenchman, with a passion for
women, and sees nothing wrong with his lifestyle. His friends and
family agree that this is the French way, and his wife must accept
the situation.

Grace is remarkably passive on the
whole, and is required to do nothing more than look beautiful, which
is just as well really, because she has no hobbies, doesn't read,
takes no interest in current affairs, and plays no part in running
Charles-Edouard's homes. She's really rather boring, and doesn't
even spend much time with her son, preferring to leave him with
Nanny.

The son, Sigismond (Sigi for short), is
the 'Blessing' of the title and is a monstrously precocious little
brat who doesn't really speak or behave like a small boy. He is, I
think, the most un-childlike child I have ever encountered in the
realms of fiction or reality.

However, obnoxious Sigi is, I can't
blame him for his machinations when his parents separate, because
after being ignored he suddenly finds himself the centre of attention
as they each spend time and money on him. And their suitors also
produce lavish (and sometimes inappropriate ) gifts, so Sigi is not
keen for Grace and Charles-Edouard to get together with each other,
or with anyone else. He richly deserves the box on the ears he
finally receives when his parents' eyes are opened, and all ends as
happily as it should.

A host of other characters flit in and
out of the story. There is Nanny, of course, who hates all things
French, but misses them when she is back in England, and Albertine
Marel-Desboulles, Charles-Edouard's intelligent and cultured older
mistress, who I thought was a much more intesting charcter than
Grace, and her young rival Juliette Novembre de la Ferte. And then
thre is Grace's old schoolfriend Carolyn, married to clever,
opinionated American Hector Dexter: the couple move in the highest
diplomatic and political circles – but they are not quite what they
seem.It may not sound like it, but I did enjoy reading this, although it didn't stay in my mind afterwards, and I'm not sure I would read it again – unlike Mitford's 'The Pursuit of Love' and 'Love in a Cold Climate', which are both old favourites which I've read and re-read over the years.

Friday, 2 November 2012

Yellow
Penguins are SO cheerful! I wasn't even aware that the vintage
numbered Penguins included this 'miscellaneous' range, until I found
two of them in a charity shop, for 99p each. They are both in really
good condition and, despite their age, the yellow covers are still
bright and cheerful, and I simply couldn't resist them. They both
fall into the 'humorous' category, and it's interesting to see what
made people laugh more than half a century ago.

Beyond
the Headlines, by
Timothy Shy (Penguin 341) is a collection of pieces from the
long-defunct News Chronicle, which was a popular daily paper when
this book was printed in 1941. Timothy Shy was the nom de plume used
by Dominic Bevan Wyndham-Lewis for his column in the paper – at an
earlier stage in his career he was the original Beachcomber at the
Daily Express, and co-edited 'The Stuffed Owl', an anthology of bad
verse by great poets, so he obviously had a keen sense of the absurd,
but some of his work would definitely not produce laughs today, and
would be regarded as distinctly politically incorrect. For example,
use of the word 'cretins' in a headline would not be countenanced
today in any publication, whatever the context.

These
pieces are sketches on life, in which the author takes pot shots at
politicians, celebrities and anyone (or anything) else that takes his
fancy. Like many similar writers he frequently sounds snide, and
makes his point through allusion and innuendo, rarely naming names or
explaining his comments. Presumably this technique offered some
protection against a libel action, and readers must have understood
who (or what) it was all about, but from a distance of 71 years it
was hard to grasp. I couldn't imagine anyone laughing uproariously
today, but some of the less topical entries did make me smile.

For
me the charm of the book lies in the gorgeous dancing penguin on the
front (I do wish the company would reintroduce it) and an advert on
the back cover for Pears transparent soap, which cost the princely
sum of sixpence a cake - old money, obviously – this was well
before decimalisation. The ad urges readers to 'Feel its tonic
action' It also claims the soap is 'matchless
for the complexion' and that it 'wears down without waste to the
thinnest wafer' , a huge selling point during WW2 when everything was
in such short supply. There's even a 'by appointment to H.M. The
King logo!

There's
another ad inside for 'The Business Woman's Opportunity'extolling the
virtues of taking out a policy with the Prudential Assurance Co.
Ltd., the benefits of which included 'a Dowry when you marry' for
women who were 'not over 34'. How times have changed!

Paper
was in short supply during the war, so the book is printed on rather
coarse paper, and Penguin supported an appeal for books to be sent to
the forces. A plea for donations printed at the front says: “When
you have read this book, please leave it at your nearest Post Office,
so that the men and women in the Services may enjoy it too.”

The
second yellow Penguin is Osbert Lancaster Cartoons (number
501) which was published slightly later, in February 1945. The
dancing penguin is still there on the title page, but has vanished
from the front cover, and the book cost 9 pence. Like 'Beyond the
Headlines', the paper is obviously of inferior quality, and the
cartoons are very much of their time, and not at all PC: they would
probably mean more to someone who remembers the war and rationing,
but having said that many of them have stood the test of time and are
still funny – well, they made me laugh.

By
the time this book appeared Lancaster was working as press attache
for the British Embassy in Athens, so these cartoons must have
originally been printed at a slightly earlier stage in the war.
Somehow the style of drawing does not seem as sharp as it later
became, though that could be down to poor paper and print quality,
coupled with the fact that we are used to seeing his work in a
smaller format, since he was famous for his 'pocket' cartoons.

But
his witty observations on the social order are present in abundance,
and the cast of upper class characters who became so familiar in his
post-war work are already clearly defined. There are military men,
naval commanders, socialites, landed gentry, and businessmen, many of
whom seem to have a somewhat tenuous grasp on reality. I rather like this ditzy blonde airhead, who knows that war work at Ministry of Information is interesting, but is attracted to the ATS - because it's easier to get lipstick in the Auxiliary Territorial Service!

And
while I'm not sure when Maudie Littlehampton, his most famous
creation, made her first public appearance, I found myself looking at
the women and thinking some of them could be an embryonic countess.

Whilst
both these books are curiosities, which I bought to add to my small
collection of vintage Penguins, I enjoyed this one, and it's a volume
I would pick up and look at if I need a laugh.And there's even a cartoon featuring penguins, which must be a reference to comments or decisions made by a European leader, but who it was, or which country, I have no idea, although I can see it is total nonsense to claim to be neutral while defending territory. Anyway, since this is a post about vintage Penguins, I couldn't resist including the cartoon! And if anyone can explain it, or place it in the correct historical context, I would be enormously grateful.